The Misfit Farmer

Last week, my zero-turn lawnmower stopped turning, or moving altogether for that matter. Apparently, a stick had hit the tensioner spring just right, which caused the hydrostatic drive belt to jump off and self-destruct. The belt flayed itself into rubber ribbons that wrapped tightly around a pulley. I spent the rest of the afternoon on my back underneath the blocked up lawnm...

Before my wife’s grandpa, Lowry, passed away from congestive heart failure, the apple orchard became his primary farming concern. From his in-home hospice bed, he could see the orchard out his window, thirty-two trees we had planted ten years earlier. He wanted to live long enough to see a bumper crop of apples, but when it became obvious that wouldn’t happen, he wanted to ta...

We’ve been keeping chickens for fifteen years, even though they serve no practical purpose but to provide the ambiance of a mild domestic disturbance. Apparently, we keep them for their squawking, squabbling, and general entertainment value, as the never-ending supply of eggs is one of those things that sounds good in theory, but quickly becomes overwhelming in practice.

The older I get, the more I find myself interested in the details of my health insurance (strange how that works). Over the years, I have written about several exasperating experiences with our modern healthcare system, but this past week I have taken my exas...